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>Suggesting that people simply delete what they don't want to read & carry on >normally is the same as suggesting they try to carry on a normal >conversation after putting in earplugs to block out a loud noise. & what is >the _point_ of posting email if all it's going to get is quickly buried >under a pile of jokes & silly responses from the same four or five people >who don't even seem to care or know anything about British poetry? I'm one of those who has often used the deleting argument, having an inclination towards looser perameters and being fond myself of the odd random chatting; but after the barrage of confusing posts seemingly copied from subsubpoetics, which I seem to have involuntarily joined, I'm with Nate. Maybe I've found my limit. I do think the operative word is "goodwill": it seems an abuse of goodwill to trade on the good nature and tolerance of others with an aggressively narcissistic display, and then to cry Unfair! and Censorship! and bring in the dogs of abuse when those others protest, however mildly. Nor have I required of British Poets that it talk exclusively and only about British poetry (I do believe Nate that the list's proper name is British and Irish Poets), not being a British poet myself and, moreover, believing that poetry needs no passport. Although I am, you know, a British citizen... The discussions here over the years about poetry have been educational and illuminating for me, and I have felt able to be an outsider, as it were, within them. It's true that British Poets isn't as interesting as it was. Which is a shame. Alison